IMPORTANT DATES:

December 14                Progress reports issued.
December 24 – Jan 1    Winter Break—schools closed.
January 2                     Schools reopen
January 16                   Chorus Concert, 7:00 p.m.

January 17 End of marking period, schools close 3 hours early.

January 18                   Professional Work Day—schools closed for students
January 21                   Martin Luther King, Jr. Day—schools and office closed.
January 23                   School-wide Spelling Bee

INTRAMURAL SCHEDULE
STUDENTS MUST HAVE A SIGNED PERMISSION SLIP ON FILE IN ORDER TO PARTICIPATE
SIGN-UP SHEETS ARE POSTED IN THE CAFETERIA

Imani Club 1/8; 2/5; 2/26; 4/15; 5/20 and 6/10
Coed Basketball 1/11; 1/29; 1/31 and 2/7
*Fitness with a Twist 1/8; 1/11; 1/29; 2/5; 2/19; 2/26; 3/4; 3/11; 3/25
*Students will have fun moving with many different types of equipment: Climbing Wall, Fitness lab, Pedometers, jump rope, Boxing Aerobics, Yoga, etc. Give your heart a workout!
Please note: Intramurals are from 3:10 p.m. – 4:45 p.m.

Dear Friends and Families of Lime Kiln Middle School,

Today, the second quarter interim reports were sent home. Please review these with your students. Continue to check TeacherEase for the most current information.

Tune in to NBC this Sunday, December 16th for a one hour special about the 2007 Shared Summits K2 Expedition. On July 20th, 18 people from 8 countries fought their way to the summit of K2. It was the most successful day in the history of the mountain. One of our
partners, Chris Warner (Earth Treks) was one of these climbers. Several of our summer camp students were online to follow this amazing feat. I encourage you to watch.

Mrs. Dugan announced to her students and parents this week that she will be retiring
effective December 21st. She has been an educator for 36 years. We will certainly miss Mrs. Dugan, but we are very fortunate to hire Mr. Matthew Amshey, an experienced math teacher. He will be present next week to work with Mrs. Dugan to insure a smooth transition.

The Guidance Office will be making some schedule changes to reduce class sizes and to even caseloads. These changes will affect some math and science classes. They will be done with minimal disruption. Students will be informed of any change next week and they will go into effect on January 2nd. No grades will be affected.

This week, as we continue through the 25 Rules of Civility from the book, Choosing Civility by P. M. Forni, we focus on Rule 14: Respect Other People’s Time. Below are highlights from that chapter.

Thanks to all of you who attended the Band and Strings Concert Monday evening. The students were outstanding! Thanks to Mr. Jackowski and Mr. Walls who prepared our students so well.

This will be the last Leopard’s Tale until January 11th. Have a safe and restful holiday.

Sincerely,
Brenda Thomas

Our students of the week are: Daniel Shinn, Valerie Resch, Daniella Totaro, Julian Spires, Catherine Belleza and Nicolay Topin.

THE RULES OF CIVILITY:

Rule 14. Respect Other People’s time

We respect other people’s time when we learn to value it as much as our own. It is possible to make an automatic appreciation of time part of who we are and still go through life at an unhurried pace.

Punctuality is nonnegotiable. Arriving on time is a basic rule of considerate behavior. To cancel a lunch date—or any other kind of appointment—at the last moment is rude. Consider every appointment a commitment to be there and to be there at the agreed-upon time.

A phone call is a demand for time and attention that can occur at inconvenient times. Consider opening your calls by asking, “Am I disturbing you?” Use call-waiting infrequently. Only an emergency justifies a sudden taking leave of someone so that you can direct your attention to someone else.

Always give others the amount of time that they can rightfully expect from you.

COMING IN JANUARY…HOOPS for Heart fundraiser for the American Heart Association. Details coming home on January 22nd.

Get ready all of you spelling fans! The schoolwide Spelling Bee will take place on January 23rd. Class Bees will be ocurring up until Winter Break! Get ready to befriend those dictionaries!
Mrs. Christine Barrett

Congratulations to the LKMS Concert Band, Wind Ensemble, Jazz Band, String Orchestra and Full Orchestra for their spectacular Winter Concert held Monday, December the 10th. Everybody at LKMS is so very proud of all the hard work the students did in preparation for this annual event! Our next events include the County Festivals in March and April, followed by our Hershey Park trip May 9th and our Spring Concert May 12th. Once again, congratulations on a great job!!!

Art club Family Night: 12/13 and 12/20 ( 3:15 pm to 5 pm )
The Art Club members invite family members and friends for these special nights! We are going to have some special activities such as holiday card making, decorating ornaments, and more with refreshments. If you're an art club family please save the date for us and bring your friends.

Art class needs JUNK!
- 7th graders need various types of recycles as special art materials for the upcoming project. Please, bring any small junk to art room and earn extra credits! Plastic containers, tissue boxes, gift boxes, plastic bottles, old toys, old utensils, old accessories, broken pieces of electronics, fabric scraps...are welcome (NO glass, soda cans, or milk containers). Thank you for all your support!

Jinny Shin
Art teacher

Reservoir Families: AFS student Daniel Koch is a gator transplanted here from Germany for this year. Due to circumstances beyond his control, he is going to need to change families. Please contact Mrs. Clemens if you would like more information about the possibility of hosting Daniel or for any other information about the AFS program. Cindy.Clemens@verizon.net

COUNSELOR’S CORNER…Can you believe that it will soon be time to prepare our eighth grade students for the transition to high school?! During the week of January 7-11 the guidance counselors will be presenting a unit on high school registration to all eighth grade students through their reading classes. In class we will be preparing the student to complete their high school course selection sheet. The students are urged to share all their handouts, the county high school course of studies book and all registration information with their parents. The high schools are inviting all eighth grade parents to attend a Parent High School Registration Information Meeting in early January at the respective high schools. The dates for those meetings are listed below. Together the students and their parents will complete and sign the course selection sheet and return it to the Lime Kiln Middle school guidance counselors at a later date (to be announced). Although these activities will not begin until January, we want parents to mark your calendars now with these important dates:

Resevoir High School                           Wednesday, January 9, 2008 at 7 p.m.
River Hill High School                          Thursday, January 10, 2008 at 7 p.m.
Atholton High School                           Tuesday, January 8, 2008 at 7 p.m.

GT Program Information-GT Testing 2008
            Teachers and parents may nominate students in grades 6 and 7 for testing based on classroom performance, and/or participation in advanced-level program offerings. If you would like to nominate your child for GT testing, please send Mrs. Spillman an email request by December 22nd. Once I have received your email request, I will send a testing permission form home with your child. Parent permission must be secured prior to test administration. The test will be given on February 5, 2008. This is for possible inclusion in the GT program next year.
            Students currently participating in a GT class are eligible to continue in that discipline next year. This also applies to 8th graders for high school registration. Refer to the 07-08 catalog of Approved High School Courses for course prerequisites. Students currently enrolled in the HCPSS are tested once each year and are not to be tested outside the February testing window. Students new to the school system will be tested in September.
            If you have any questions please email tracy_spillman@hcpss.org

HEALTH ROOM…Hearing and vision for 8th grade will be held on January 6th and 7th, The rescreen date will be on February 6th. Please remind students to bring/wear their glasses.
Volunteers are needed for these dates. If you are able to volunteer or you have any questions, please call Lori Miller at 410-880-5996.

This SATURDAY, Dec. 15th - OPEN HOUSE @ the Baltimore Fencing Center from Noon til 4:00pm. Youth and Adult instruction including LKMS parent instructors. Come and see what this exciting sport is all about! www.columbiamdfencing.org

From the PTA:

WHAT’S UP NEXT WITH THE HOSPITALITY COMMITTEE? Well, we are asking for COOKIES; lots and lots of COOKIES. Homemade is great but no COOKIES will be turned away. We need dozens and dozens of COOKIES! December 20 is drop off day! Please contact Moira Monk at mdmonks@comcast.net if you would like to donate COOKIES to the Hospitality committee.

LIME KILN MIDDLE SCHOOL REFLECTIONS AWARDS CEREMONY

REFLECTION CONTEST results are yet to be tallied and the winners are yet to be announced: All participating students, their families and all Lime Kiln teachers and administration are all cordially invited to attend the REFLECTIONS AWARDS CEREMONY ON TUESDAY, JANUARY 15th at 7:30 PM in the LKMS cafeteria. Each participant will receive a certificate of participation, winners will receive special gifts and 6 teachers will receive beautiful gift baskets for most motivating students in each Reflections category! Entries will be on display and refreshments will be served. An official list of Reflection

Participants will go to the teachers for extra credit. After the first of the year the display case will highlight some of the entries. All other entries can be picked up in the guidance office.

Hope to see you all at the awards ceremony. Thank you to everyone who participated and supported this creative program. The REFLECTIONS PROGRAM would not exist and flourish without all of you.

Reflections Committee Chair
Judi Neckritz
jneckritz@comcast.net
443-745-8309

The PTA received an award for increasing membership by 25 members last year! It would be great to increase membership by 50 members this year. Have you joined the PTA yet? Let's make this a goal. Please place your dues ($7 per person) in an envelope providing your name, address, and phone number and send it in with your child to his homeroom teacher today! Questions? Contact Jeanne Lineberry at jeanne_lineberry@verizon.net or (301) 317-1766.

Mark your calendars for the Annual Parents Social Event and Fundraiser that will be held on Friday, March 28th at The Gathering Hall in River Hill. If you would like to help volunteer in making this event a success or if you have a service, tickets or any other donation that you think would be helpful for an auction item, please contact Diane Thometz, dithometz@aol.com, 301-854-9730 or Leanne Glueck, lglueck@earthlink.net, 301-604-7150.

Box Tops for Education Here’s how it works: Every time you use a General Mills or Betty Crocker product please look on the product to see if they have a "Box Tops for Education" Logo on it (see sample below). If it does, then cut it out and send it in. Ask your friends and family to help. It costs you nothing and we get $.10 for each box top logo you bring in. The Campbell’s Soup “Labels for Education” are not part of the program.

FRIDGE NOTE – SAVE THE DATES:

Weds, Feb. 27th Three Brothers “Gotta Eat” Night

Watch for details regarding this no-pain/all gain fundraiser in upcoming Leopard’s Tale issues.

Used Ink Cartridges - The Music Department is collecting used ink cartridges and cell phones. Please send them in and put them in the Box Top Box in the school foyer.

PTA Events for December through February:

2007

DECEMBER

7:00 PTA Meeting

2008

JANUARY

              7   7:30 PTAC Meeting
            23    PTA Meeting
            28    3:15 SIT Meeting

FEBURARY

School Drama Production

5     7:30 PTAC Meeting
            6     4:00 Staff Conference Dinner
            13    2:15 6TH Grade Honor Roll
            14    2:15 7th Grade Honor Roll
        15    2:15 8th Grade Honor Roll
        20    PTA Meeting
            25    3:15 SIT Meeting

Gotta Eat ‘Three Brothers”